Legos--my new form of occupational therapy!

My brain was stuck for nearly two weeks on a broken record. It wasn’t even a good record. My brain told me that I was just fooling myself, that I am a terrible writer, etc. By going out and seeking reviews, doing 3 interviews, a guest blog and asked ten more people to review the novel, I got it to stop for a little while, then it happened again…

You see this all started because I was angry of what someone said to me, but what I realized made me even angrier is that I didn’t stand up for myself. Trying to be dignified, I pushed the evil little angry me down into the pit of my stomach. I ended up feeling like a passive loser.

Then the very next time, I saw this person. they said something else and as I did the first time, I simply ignored him. And the record kept playing. My husband would say, I have given power to this person, but that’s not the issue. The person’s comments are irrelevant: what made me feel this way was MY response.
I didn’t know how to respond, because there is a part of me who agreed. The part that all creative people have to fight. We all hear our minds whispering: “Maybe I am a terrible untalented hack…”

During this time of my funk, I watched Six days to Air: The Making of South Park. I garnered two very important lessons from this documentary:

1) That success will not change the “this is crap” feeling towards any creative endeavor by its creator. Apparently Trey Parker and Matt Stone get depressed about their work every single episode. In fact, it sounds like even they know it is part of their process to go through a day where they feel every single thing they ever did is s***. Logic and sixteen seasons of South Park doesn’t stop them from feeling it.

2) Trey Parker talked about doing legos in order to use a different part of his brain.
He was right. When trying to put together a legos set, your mind has to be completely focused on the project. Yet, you are not making any decisions, but following directions. When I was a child, I would play with legos as a creative toy, but as an adult, I am putting together models.

Dennis has been doing the Starwars Series and I’ve been doing the Lord of the Rings Series. I did the Orc Forge, Shelob, and Weather Top. Dennis also got me Helm’s Deep and the Mines of Moria (Isn’t he such a sweet husband?) It’s like a jigsaw puzzle in a way. It shuts off everything else. It clears the mind to do what needs to be done.

So now I’m back to feeling normal. Or at least slightly less crazy.
To those of you don’t like Other Systems that’s cool, not everyone is going to like it. Write a bad review if you feel the need. Bad reviews and constructive criticism doesn’t bother me. Matter of fact, I believe any review is a good review for a new author.

Just because YOU didn’t like my book, doesn’t make me less of an author.

However people who wrap up digs in the form of jokes and say them in crowds, knowing the digged won’t respond with anger, is a bully. Regardless I’m doing legos now. With my mind-shield of plastic, nothing can hurt me.